


To Stare At Time Forgotten

by cilceon



Series: Lying Eyes and Honest Hands [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:05:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27320128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cilceon/pseuds/cilceon
Summary: They had reached the top and she clutched her heart as she looked over Boston. Sure enough the sun had worked its nightly magic, casting a warm orange glow on the landscape.Like an old art piece done by an over-skilled and under-payed sculptor, the world around them scream ‘Look at me! I’m here! Aren’t I wonderful!’ Every possible reflective surface was shimmering, the river predominantly but also the shattered windows of buildings and cars. Glass shards and not fully rusted metal lined the maze of streets and displayed the sun like bits of a giant flat disco ball.If Deacon didn’t have his glasses on the sight very well could have blinded him(Sure Deacon hated heights, and the monument at Bunker Hill was... tall. But it had quite a view when the sun would set, so why not kill some time before caring on with the job Wanderer & him were running? A shame that he didn't take into account that the world around them was a recently plotted graveyard to her.)
Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor
Series: Lying Eyes and Honest Hands [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992751
Kudos: 17





	To Stare At Time Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! I'm republishing the stories from my pervious series with major amendments and better closings (this is the 2nd fixer-upper) so you might be thinking 'huh, I've already read a story like this...' to which I say 'yes, dear reader you 100% have! but now it actually reads well (hopefully)' so bear with me and my fast-food version of fallout fics.  
> I added about 1k more words with this amendment but if you want the old version the link to it is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24157348)  
> Thank you so much for the support! Please feel free to leave a comment … I thrive on validation & to be honest I'm not quite convinced my writing is getting better.  
> \- lyss

_“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied  
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!  
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;  
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;  
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,  
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;  
But last year’s bitter loving must remain  
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.  
There are a hundred places where I fear  
To go,—so with his memory they brim.  
And entering with relief some quiet place  
Where never fell his foot or shone his face  
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”  
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.”  
_ _- **Edna St. Vincent Millay** -_

“Ya’ know if you want, you can go all the way to the top.” Deacon hollered behind her as they walked through the gates of Bunker hill.

The gates themselves seemed to have fallen apart even more than they had the last time he was there. Should he take it up with management?

His thoughts were taken from the complaint as a caravan hand fumbled with a box, almost dropping it as they passed. He shouldn’t be surprised. That was the General of the Minutemen after all. He looked at the boy behind his glasses, sending the poor soul scurrying off the way he came.

Today Deacon was nothing more than a minuteman assigned to the newly appointed General’s side by Preston Garvey himself – a personal favorite disguise he was finding. Though he had the telltale hat on, the General in question was in an old, faded flannel and even more faded blue jeans, converse loosely tide around her ankles.

It had to be the posture that gave her away. over the last few months, she had begun to develop this sort of aura around her. One that said _yeah you bet your ass I'm important and it’d be wise of you not to try anything_.

“It’s really still open?” Wanderer stopped walking, not noticing the boy run off. Dogmeat followed suit before cocking his head to the side in a silent question. “All the way up?”

He hummed softly watching the hound, “Mhm, all the way up.”

Deacon didn’t think it wise to remind her of the tower’s interior the first time they were officially here together – to see a certain old man in a black suit. Moreover, he had noticed that first time, she hardly glanced at it… or at him – when she came through with just Dogmeat a week prior to that. She was far too exhausted.

He needed to work on sharpening that perception of hers because at that point in her wasteland story, those glasses had been feet away from her several times. The dog had known it too.

Deacon almost let his _oh I’m so proud of you_ smile, that he saved just for her slip when he remembered the way she had responded to Kessler’s classic raider/caravan greeting without a beat skipped.

Announcing herself a trader with a voice that wasn’t her own. Wanderer had taken – for a brief moment, the roll of a caravan runner. He had put a mental bookmark on that page, to develop it more at a later date. A date he hoped that would be fast approaching.

If he was asked to pic a moment to hold up as the one where he decided one hundred percent that they needed her in HQ. It would have been when Cabot’s ghoulcenary had approached Wanderer, practically right in front of him a minute after that exchange.

Though she knew the Commonwealth well enough for the job requested of her, Deegan had stopped her from heading to the bunkhouse – to Tony and the conversation Deacon may or may not have suggested that he have with his father if he saw a woman with a dog go near them. Poor old pops didn’t know that his boy was already one of them. ~~~~

Deegan had shot out his boss’ proposition to her. Stated that it would be dangerous, but the pay would be worth whatever it was. Wanderer had looked him square in the eye with a hand on her hip. Her body language had screamed for this guy to get out of her way. “Sorry, I don’t ‘take _’_ jobs cause they’re dangerous or for money.” She had continued waking but had quipped over her shoulder, “I help people ‘cause they need help. Simple as that.”

Beliefs, caps, or ego: and this little nugget of a conversation was the last piece he needed to finally have one solidified on her. The only one of the three types he ever let down to HQ in the first place.

“Sweet little boy of mine,” She addressed Dogmeat now, “Why don’t you stay down here, okay?” Wanderer smiled towards the top of the pillar as Dogmeat settled himself by the archway, a look of curiosity-driven determination on her face. “Dee, you don’t gotta come with me but…” She trailed off; her expression somewhat fretted.

Either he let it slip that he was terrified of heights in the last few weeks or, and this was the most likely option, she still didn’t trust him completely.

Calling him Dee was a nice sign he was steering her that way though.

Deacon might’ve been by her side even before that vault door screeched opened, had picked off baddies, cleared most routs she would take, never enough to raise an eyebrow – well except for that time a feral almost ripped her head off before she could so much as turn around. He took that shot and it turned out fine. Wanderer didn’t know it was him and she still had an intact face to boot. No damage done. But she didn't know any of that.

Deacon was nearly enthusiastic – hell giddy, about seeing how long it’d take him before she was comfortable around her like she was with Garvey or Nick. He’d be damned if he let the reporter get to that milestone before him.

“And miss out on the awe and wonder in your eyes when you see the view?” He gestured upwards. “Not a chance, boss”

The previous look of determination returned as she took her eyes from him and began to climb the staircase, himself close behind. After a few steps he added, “We’ll probably get up to the top just in time to see the sunset.”

“Oh gosh, you think so?” She sounded like what he imagined a kid would be like if they were given free range of a candy store.

“I bet its gonna look so pretty with the water of the river.” She was out of breath now and they weren’t even halfway up yet. Got to find a way to get her endurance up, if things turn bad on an op and she had to run – “I hope it’s not too cloudy. Oh, but I wanna see the way it bounces off the clouds.”

An endearing little quirk of hers was when she did that whole ‘ _gotta, gonna, wanna’_ thing. Deacon had learned in those first few weeks of watching her, that when she started mashing words together like that instead of speaking like – as Carington would put it – a person with an education, as someone with a… degree. An actual real-life degree in something.

What was it Wanderer said she was? A lawyer? And that was her only job back then. She wasn’t a farmer and a mechanic too, or a caravan merchant. Just a lawyer, well a mother as well… but she didn’t care much to discuss that part with him. Deacon couldn’t fault her for it. Though he had known her for nearly three months now, she had (officially) met him two weeks prior. He guessed that wasn’t enough time to warrant the telling of her tragic backstory.

That wasn’t the point – the point was that speech pattern, which most post-war folks of the ghoul variety had, was only with her when she was spilling out genuine emotion. When Wanderer wasn’t thinking about every word that she was going to say next.

Another note in his list was to get her to be aware of that when she’d get intel. Most people in the ‘wealth weren’t nearly as good as him but that didn’t mean there were a few dangerous ones that could swing in the same park. It’d raise alarms if they could tell if she was playing an angle.

With each step the pair grew farther from the safety of solid ground.

When they would – regretfully – pass one of the holes in the wall, Wanderer would glance out in anticipation as if she were a puppy about to go for a run. Deacon, on the other hand, was trying awfully hard to do anything but that. He was more akin to a mutt well aware it was being taken round back to be put down.

When they were still on the ground, he thought the monument wasn’t _that_ high. But with every crack and hole, they got higher and his stomach dropped lower. He really needed to get over the heights thing. He opted for turning his focus to the heels of the woman in front of him.

She had on her pair of deep red hightops – maybe they were once black and radiation had its way with them. He couldn’t tell. Next time there needed to be a conversation topic change he’d ask her about it.

He noted that they weren’t laced all the way up. Instead, she had wrapped the strings around each ankle, then brought them to the front like one would an old-world apron, in bows he didn’t quite recognize the knotting of.

A normal person would think she did that to keep the laces from being too long and out of the mud. But if that were the case why not just cut them shorter? But Deacon knew better, had seen old photos of kids and young adults wearing shoes like those the same way she was. It was a semblance of normalcy for Wanderer. Maybe a reminder of who she once was, or what she had lost.

He found himself remembering how Cosworth had exclaimed to her that he was able to fend off scavers from them and most of the contents of her old home. He recalled the way she held those shoes, like they were the most important thing in the world. Clutching then to her chest as she hugged the Mister Handy.

Yeah, definitely asking about those at some point.

“ _Oh_.” Wanderer breathed, stopping so abruptly he almost ran her over.

They had reached the top and she clutched her heart as she looked over Boston. Sure enough the sun had worked its nightly magic, casting a warm orange glow on the landscape.

Like an old art piece done by an over-skilled and under-payed sculptor, the world around them scream _‘Look at me! I’m here! Aren’t I wonderful!’_ Every possible reflective surface was shimmering, the river predominantly but also the shattered windows of buildings and cars. Glass shards and not fully rusted metal lined the maze of streets and displayed the sun like bits of a giant flat disco ball.

If Deacon didn’t have his glasses on the sight very well could have blinded him.

Wanderer shuttered in a breath; her shoulders tightened with the movement. Hands not moving from their place at her chest.

All the excitement and joy she had moments ago was gone.

She was still, eyes darting around the rubble below them. Wanderer didn’t think it was beautiful like he had hoped.

He was studying the back of her now, trying to get a correct read on the emotion. Anger? Frustration? No, Wanderer would be clenching and unclenching her hands if it were one of those two.

Disbelief perhaps, or shock? Nada, those two often let her breathing quicken, not slow down like… this.

He shifted by Wanderer’s side in a bid to see her face clearer. Her jaw was clenched, eyes slowing their search now. She blinked; a tear betrayed her and made no move to hide it. She let it slide down her face. Greif.

Oh… she was grieving.

Not good.

Where he saw a sculpture, she saw a graveyard.

Nearly a minute passed before she let one hand leave her chest and rest upon the side of the windowsill, taking a step closer to it to see below them. A gold ring on her second finger catching the rays of the fleeting sun.

“Everythin’s so… quiet.” Her voice was nearly to the point of shaking, another tear fell. “So – still. Titletown’s never still. This city’s never quiet.”

Titletown? Another conversation piece, he supposed. Deacon moved to lean against the side of the window opposite her, careful not to look down.

Wanderer took the hand from the brick of the wall as she gestures to one of the collapsing skyscrapers. “I lived there for a few years; it was an apartment building… way back when. While I was at school and he was away.”

She didn’t need to add the name. Deacon knew who _he_ was. The hand still on her chest tightened in the fabric of her flannel. “It was a nice little place. Lonely, but nice. Most of my floor were university and grad school kids. A lot of them were good people. People who coulda changed the world if they were ever given the chance.”

She pointed to another structure now. “That was the old mall before it got run into the ground and turned into a giant office complex, a shame really…. Over there is– was a penthouse for some of hotshot upper class socialites.” She squinted at the building in question before adding; “Its Ticon now.”

Wanderer kept going like that as the sunset turned the rains over to the night. Gesturing towards a place then describing it, listing things she remembered from them. He watched her all the while, noting the look of fondness at one location, distain at another.

This woman could make a living as a storyteller if the whole General of the Minutemen and Railroad agent gig didn’t pan out.

If it were anybody else, Deacon would be interrupting every other sentence. Making up his own history behind each building. He was finding, as more time passed, that Wanderer wasn’t like anybody else. Even the prewar ghouls. All that history was fresh in her mind. To her it had all existed less than six months ago. The prewar world, which he could never even begin to grasp, wasn't just an idea to her. It wasn't even a distant memory yet. It was her life. It was all what she had ever known until very recently. It had to be hell.

In this moment Deacon was watching a survivor of a war who never saw the final battle itself happen. Did she have family out there when the bombs fell? Could any of them still be alive as ghouls at this point? The thought had to have crossed her mind at least once.

She was near the midpoint of her twenties, if he had to guess how old she was – a dangerous thing to do, to try to pinpoint a woman’s age – nevertheless, maybe her mother or father were still alive when everything happened.

Did she have a brother or a sister? For all the digging Deacon had done on the sole survivor of Vault 111, he only knew what she was now. He now realized there was a person before. Of course, there was. But now was when it truly sank in. Wanderer wasn’t just a finally puzzle piece that was somehow tied to the Institute, she was a person. A grieving person.

She didn't just exist the second she came out of her little box. She had at least two decades of history and life in her. Deacon wasn’t sure how it got into his head that she had just suddenly sprung into existence. Wanderer had been alive longer than he had – technically. How foolish for him to forget.

A single bark sounded below them, one that said _It’s been a while and I’m worried,_ ending his thoughts and her words.

The sun was completely gone now, all that was left were the stars, scattered camp firelights, and the glow from Goodneighbor and Diamond City.

“I hadn’t realized we’ve been up here so long.” Wanderer said sheepishly, “Sorry for all the rambling.”

“Don’t sweat it, boss.” Deacon really meant it. He had a pension for collecting bits of prewar information and she chuck was full of it. Besides, this had to be cathartic for her

He moved the opposite way from the window and extended his hand toward the stairs. Wanderer took the cue and began the trek down to ground level. “With the sundown we can go bother Stockton.” He added as they moved.

She let out a hum as she bounced down the steps. The woman she showed the average wastelander was returning with each movement. “So, you brought me up her to kill time, is that it?”

“You catch on fast.” He was watching her shoes again. The light might be gone but the reminders in the walls about their current elevation were still there. Killing time was a nice bonus, but he learned a lot about her in the last hour.

When Dogmeat saw Wanderer round the corner of the monument, he let out a contented puff of air.

“Thanks for waiting, boy.” She scratched the underside of his chin while commending his watchdog abilities. “And thank you for reminding me of the view.” Wanderer turned to him.

“I aim to please ma’am.” Minutemen Deacon said with a tip of his hat towards the General.

She smiled with a nod as she turned towards her furry companion, realizing that he was back in character.

He watched Wanderer’s back straighten slightly as she walked ahead of him, the splinter of sadness that she allotted for him to see in the tower above, seemingly forgotten for the time being. Though, he noted, her steps seemed less heavy.

Maybe Dogmeat saw it too, for the hound looked up at him as they went. Head cocked to the side in silent question, ‘ _What did you do up there?’_ those eyes asked.

Deacon shrugged before he could think better of having a mute conversation with a dog.

Whatever was going to happen for however long the two of them ran jobs together, at least it wouldn’t be boring.


End file.
